The Kaiju Preservation Society Review by John Scalzi
Hardcover, 272 pages
Publication: March 15th 2022 by Tor Books.
3.5 out of 5
Go ahead and pick your comparison … action-packed summer blockbuster, perfect pop song for driving with the windows down, or a beach read that will cause possible sunburns. I needed this book. It’s kind of a perfect novel for right now. Since all the insanity of the last couple of years, I’ve been wondering how it would affect artists and the art they make, and this is it right here. It’s a John Scalzi novel about Kaiju and about a society that preserves them. What’s not to like?
Jamie Gray gets demoted from his executive position right as the 2020 pandemic hits New York, by a joke of a boss. While barely making ends meet as a food delivery person, he runs into an old friend who offers him a new job in “large animal care” (“I lift boxes,” Jamie tells everyone.) But the benefits are fantastic, as long as you don’t mind being completely out of touch with society for six months. A little cagey about the job details, though … it turns out, for good reason.
John Scalzi is fast becoming one of my auto-buy authors. He knows how to lean into his dad rock Sci-Fi, and really knows how to make his everyman protagonist not be an obnoxiously stale crouton of a human being. I like how he really didn’t describe settings or people, allowing your brain to fill in the blanks around the world and people. Giving his characters escape routes, fantastic stories, and alternate ways of living through them. Focused instead on witty banter and an interesting tale. But like mostly the witty banter. Like 90%. If you are a person who doesn’t like modern references in stories, then you might not like this. It’s chock full of popular science fiction and media quotes. I laughed out loud at times. Scalzi also gleefully imagines insane biological systems, and I just went along for the ride without worrying about whether it made any sense or not.
It’s not the deepest read, but it’s a very fun escape-type read. That doesn’t mean you might not catch some feelings – there is tragedy & character growth, but much in the way that a halfway decent superhero or disaster movie offers them. You feel badly for a minute but there’s so much going on that soon you’re on to the next flashy thing without having to think too hard about any of it. There were also some interesting themes on human greed and the peril this puts the environment in as well as unintended consequences and who the true monsters are (which is admittedly a little bit cliché but it was done in a really fun way.)
The Kaiju Preservation Society pays homage to monster-movies such as Godzilla and Jurassic Park, but with a twist. I whipped through it over the weekend, and it’s the kind of book I might read again sometime, just for the sheer enjoyment of it. If you think your day could do with some hours of enjoyable distraction, then this might be just what you need. It’s not at all serious, but sometimes that’s okay.